Protecting
by Windswift
Summary: Akito built the Souma cage to protect his Juunishi. Because when someone is different, normal people will crush them until they are broken.


Disclaimer: Fruits Basket belongs to Natsuki Takaya

The "Chapter 97 spoiler" really has no effect here, so I chose to use the conventional method, and you may apply the spoiler if you so desire. Besides, I haven't even read up to chapter 97 in the first place…

_**Protecting**_

"_Because even a cage of stone will eventually crumble. The best way to protect something is to set it free." –Merlin, The Seven Songs of Merlin_

Slender fingers tapped against the window sill. Hatori had forbidden going outside again, but if he wanted Akito to stop sitting in the open window, he would have to lock it shut himself.

He resented being confined to his room like a child, ordered around as if he were not the head of the family. But Hatori was older than he, and the aspiring doctor only did so for the sake of his health. Akito scowled—he hated the fact that his body could not handle the full weight of the curse, and that he was sacrificing his life for people he never wanted; but the rest of the cursed were God's chosen, and Akito was God, so he would simply have to do his best anyway.

It was lonely being in his room all day as well. Most of the family rubbed him the wrong way, so he was always lacking company. Usually he would have Yuki stay with him—his mouse, the first to arrive at the banquet—but the younger boy was still inconsolable.

Yuki was being ungrateful.

Akito might have been rather cynical about it, but he had only been trying to protect Yuki. It was his own fault anyway, for letting the secret of the curse be discovered. If he had wanted to keep his friends, he should have taken more care not to let them see how different and strange he is. No one outside could be allowed to know.

So he had made Hatori suppress the children's memories. The calm, efficient, and cold dragon… he, at least, understood the responsibility that came with the curse. Akito's duty was to protect and care for his family.

That same sense of duty made Hatori confine a frail Akito to his room.

When God held his banquet, the twelve animals of the zodiac attended. They became his favorites, the most precious to him of all the animals. So the Juunishi, then, were Akito's most prized possessions. And the best way to protect these possessions, he reasoned, was to lock them away, safe from harm. No matter how much they protested, he needed to be strong and resolute for them.

The Souma cage. Not a prison, but a safe.

God gave the world to the people he created. But before he ever formed the world, he had his angels. Would it not have made more sense to give the earth to his first-chosen and beloved?

But humans _hate_ anyone who is different. The angels would have been so strange and foreign… so frightening… It was not jealously, but prudence that kept his angels in heaven.

No one should ever question God. Yuki would have to learn his place within the Main House, much like Akito had had to learn to obey Hatori's restrictions. To him, the little mouse was the most precious of all—whatever it took, Akito would keep him close and let no one else harm his treasure.

People naturally fear the things they do not understand. Fear—and hate—are powerful motivators.

When someone is strange, different, special, then normal people will do all in their power to snuff the one out. People are ignored, or attacked, or simply smothered until their unique spark of life dies. They either break down and conform, or break to the point that they no longer function.

Why should one risk that life and die amid so much animosity?

Is it not better to be loved? To eventually wither away from a thirst for freedom, held tightly in the embrace of someone that at least cares for one's fate?

If there is no way to win, it would be better to destroy a precious possession one's self, rather than let someone else destroy it. Some things are far too valued to let go of, to watch as someone else callously ruins them.

Akito is God, and they are his chosen. He is the family head, and they are his responsibility. He will be their cage, and they will be loved and protected to the best of his ability.

Because it does not matter if one is wrong, only that one has tried.

**…****  
Owari  
…**

_-Windswift_


End file.
